To MRS. BANNATYNE.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Feb. 26, 1827.
By some strange chance I was taken away from home just after the time
when Colonel Stewart's pamphlet on India, which you were so kind as to
send me, arrived; in short, I never read it till a few days ago. I am in
admiration of it; it is beautifully written, with such clearness, lucid
order, simplicity, dignity, strength, and eloquence—eloquence resulting
from strong feeling. The views of its vast subject are comprehensive and
masterly; the policy sound, both theoretically and practically
considered; the morality as sound as the policy, indeed no policy can be
sound unless joined with morality. The sensibility and philanthropy that
not only breathe but live and act in this book are of the true, manly, enduring sort—not the affected, sickly, spurious kind, which is displayed only for the trick of the poet or orator. It is a book which a good and wise man must ever rejoice in having written, and which will be satisfactory to him even to the last moment of his life.
Have you seen the Tales of the O'Hara Family—the second series? They
are of unequal value; one called the "Nowlans" is a work of great
genius. Another book has much amused us, Captain Head's Rough
Sketches, most animated and masterly sketches of his journey across the
Pampas. There is much information and much good political economy
condensed in his three chapters on speculators.